Have you been fascinated by the visual clarity of the London Underground map? Finally, with the advent of HTML5 element and jQuery, it is now possible to implement this in a way that with a little bit of effort, anyone who knows HTML can easily create a subway map.
Subway Map Visualization jQuery Plugin lets you create a beautiful, interactive subway map visualization for their website using HTML markup. The map size, line width and colors can all be customizable. The markup used to create the map is search engine friendly too.
While not quite a truism, it’s pretty widely accepted that a music startup is a bad idea. The record industry is at best unsupportive and at worst litigious when it comes to digital music sales and sharing and when it comes to welcoming (or crushing or suing) new companies and technologies.
So it’s hard not to be quite skeptical about the claims from a new startup – ReDigi – that it plans to launch a marketplace where you can legally sell your pre-owned digital music.
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The ReDigi Marketplace will be a contemporary used record store of sorts, the company says, where customers can bring in their old, unwanted records and CDs for trade-in and then buy used music at a discounted price. Except in this case, of course, those unwanted records are digital music files, and the transfer of ownership is a lot more complicated than simply handing over an old CD for a couple of bucks.
Buying and Selling Used MP3s – Is It Legally or Technically Possible?
ReDigi claims it’s meeting a customer demand – the desire to get rid of old music you no longer want. “The typical listener regularly uses only about 20 percent of the music in their libraries. The balance represents a lot of money and disk space being tied up on their computers and mobile devices,” says John Ossenmacher, ReDigi’s CEO. “With the legal issues involved in the selling and sharing of digital music, people have been stuck with their unwanted tunes, or forced to delete them in order to free space. ReDigi is the answer to that problem.”
ReDigi says it has come up with a technological solution to this problem, although it hasn’t released details of exactly how this transfer will work. It also claims that it’s “figured out what could be done to legally ensure that consumers regain the freedom to manage their own personal music collections.” Details are scarce there too.
Ownership of Digital Content – Is It Different Than the Physical Version?
Digital music files were once viewed by the record industry as illegal in and of themselves. An MP3 was presumed to be ripped and stolen from a CD. Although you can now easily purchase MP3s (and/or music in a DRM-restricted format), the rights you are granted as a customer are quite different than those when you buy a physical copy of an album. When you download an MP3 from Amazon, for example, the terms of service say that “upon your payment of our fees for Digital Content, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Digital Content for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use, subject to and in accordance with the Terms of Use.”
You are free to sell your physical copy of a record, in other words. That’s legal. But you cannot transfer your rights to an MP3 to another person.
According to a story in Hypebot, ReDigi says it will give record labels and artists a share of sales. And while these groups have never had a share of the used record business, I am still skeptical that this is enough to win the record industry’s support.
The Future for Used (Digital) Music, Used (Digital) Books
Even if a music startup is a bad idea and a marketplace for used MP3s a suspicious one, this project is fascinating nonetheless. Are physical copies different than digital copies of content or not? The challenges that, I predict, ReDigi will face will likely be yet another demonstration of how the rules that apply to physical media – namely the ownership, transfer of ownership, and lending rights – often only apply to digital media when those rules benefit publishers and record labels. You can only lend a copy of an e-book to one person at a time, for example – just like a printed copy. You can only lend an e-book 26 times – quite unlike the shelf-life of a printed copy. You can sell a CD you don’t want to another person, but you cannot sell MP3s you don’t want.
You’re not still wearing off-the-peg sneakers, are you? Tut, tut, how very 2009. With a wealth of affordable personalization options online, nowadays you can easily create your own customized footwear.
We’ve found six online solutions that will help you design funky footwear that’s unique to you. So why not show off a bit of your creativity and stand out from the rest of the boringly-shod crowd?
If this sounds good, then put your best foot forward and take a walk through the gallery below. Let us know in the comments which design-your-own services you’ve tried out and if you haven’t yet, then the ones that you like the look of.
Nike’s well-established customization service lets you start with one of the company’s designs and change it to suit your taste, or start with a totally blank canvas.
The service is perfectly suited to anyone looking for proper training shoes, rather than fashion sneakers. With the ability to change the color of every element of the shoe’s design, you can create a cool custom pair of kicks that will stand out from the crowd on any court where you play.
As well as personalize the color-way of your new shoes, you can change the text on the heel, and then when you’re happy with your design, share it to your social networks and add it to the NIKEiD gallery.
Vans keeps its service simple with just four shoe types to customize, one of which is its now-classic slip-on number in both white and black.
As you’d expect from the brand, as well as colors, there’s a wide range of contemporary patterns to choose from, and in the case of the slip-on shoe, you can mix and match designs.
As well as starting with a totally blank shoe, you can start with a patterned model and than tweak it to your heart’s content, choosing different colors for the binding, foxing, collar lining and even the elastic gore (the stretchy bit on the top!)
Converse’s “Design Your Own” service is seriously fun — and offers far-reaching customization options. There are around 20 types of sneaker and baseball boot styles to choose from as your blank canvas. As well as a palette of vibrant colors to pick from, there’s also a ton of funky, and in some cases unusual, patterns.
Perfect for those who pay strict attention to detail, you can change the color of the laces, the eyelets and even the stitching! There is also an option to add text to the heel of the shoe — with a choice of two fonts to select from.
Sample cost: Chuck Taylor All Star Ox Canvas — $67
Offering a variety of sneaks to personalize, Adidas’s take on the customization process is comprehensive and changes with the shoe you choose.
For example, with the Gazelle (pictured) you can make each stripe a different color while the mi adizero Rose design process will see your name laser-etched on the shoe’s bumper. Or you can pick a personalized number to appear on the lace’s tag.
This means it’s worth playing around with the web-based design app to see what options each shoe offers; just don’t get too carried away and order the set!
Sole Creator takes customization to the extreme with its online design service offering tons of backgrounds, a huge album of clip art, the ability to draw designs freehand, add as much text as you can fit on, and even upload an image.
With brands to choose from such as Converse, Vans, DYO and Ethletic, it’s worth noting that Sole Creator offers worldwide delivery, so it’s a great option for those outside the States (because many of the U.S.-based in-house sneaker design services don’t ship internationally.)
If you’re on a budget and don’t want to splash out on a whole new pair of shoes, but still want to personalize a pair, then SneakArt offers flexible, durable, waterproof, adhesive skins in a massive range of patterns so that you can DIY your own designs in the comfort of your own home.
While not quite a truism, it’s pretty widely accepted that 
